Helping Families Cope

Locations

Catholic Charities has four offices across the Diocese. We are located in Altoona, Johnstown, Bellefonte, and McConnellsburg. Click below for detailed contact information for all four of our locations.

Our Services

Our services are provided by a skilled, experienced staff, many of whom have master's degrees in counseling and social work and are licensed and certified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and other professional organizations.

Our

Our Methods of Seeking Support

We have received reports from several local parishioners stating that they received a telephone call soliciting for contributions to Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities does not solicit for individual contributions by telemarketing. Currently, Catholic Charities solicits support by mail, email, our website, www.catholiccharitiesaj.org, and our annual second collection in November. If you receive a call seeking contributions for Catholic Charities, please feel free to contact our office at 944-9388.

Homelessness doesn't just impact adults. In fact, a growing number of students in our region have no place to call home.

According to Maureen Bourke, the Region 6 site coordinator for student homelessness through the PA Department of Education, in the 11-county region she serves (Armstrong, Blair, Cambria, Cameron, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Elk, Indiana, Jefferson, and Potter counties), the homeless student population has steadily increased.

“It varies from year to year as far as districts, but there has been a steady increase at least for the past four to five years that we’ve been able to solidify the data and look at the actual numbers,” Bourke said in an interview with The Courier Express.

The article states that the number of homeless students attending public school in Pennsylvania increased by 18 percent between the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years — an increase more than double the national average of 8 percent, according to statistics reported by the U.S. Department of Education.

Johnstown is considered the poorest city in Pennsylvania, according to an article published in 24/7 Wall Street. The city earned this designation due to low median incomes ($25,542 vs. $52,548), high poverty rates (26.8%), and low educational attainment of bachelor’s degrees (11.2% vs. 27.5%).

This offers just a glimpse into the significant need for Catholic Charities’ offerings in Cambria County and the surrounding eight-county area that we serve.

For the most part, it’s been a mild winter thus far. But there are still several months to bear before spring is here. While Catholic Charities offers emergency financial assistance to area households that need help in paying their heating bills, we also provide education on how to prepare and maintain your home so that it conserves energy and results in lower utility bills each winter.

Catholic Charities has a rich history of helping neighbors in need, and in recognition of our 75th anniversary this fiscal year, we plan to highlight some of the milestone headlines and photos from our archives.

Click here to read more about the opening of our Bellefonte office in 2006.